There is a certain
similarity between how I am in myself and how I perceive God in my life and my
prayer. Take, for example, a person preoccupied by law, rules and right
behaviour. He or she is focussed on observances and performance, and that can
be good, but it is not a place at which to remain, for there is more. Such a
person will tend to see God as Lawgiver, Judge, Accountant, someone who is
watching with a critical eye.
But the Lord is requesting of me not only a life lived by
commandments, even if they be divine. My Creator is making an offer to me,
inviting me into a personal, conscious relationship of love with Godself. I am
invited to awaken to the deep truth of what it means to be a creature, namely,
that my Creator is loving me into existence and is doing this continuously. I
exist because God wants me to exist; he loves me, and so I exist. I am
attractive and important in God’s eyes; I am ‘precious’ to him (Is 43:4). To
accept this truth is a big shift in my perception of who I am, and in my image
of who God is. A new level of relationship with God comes into view. But there
is yet more.
This God wants my heart. As my Creator, God is giving me his
heart already by loving me without reserve. Over the long history of salvation
God has revealed more of his desire towards me by arriving at the extraordinary
point of giving me his Son, so that I can be not only a loved creature but an
adopted son or daughter, who shares in the Sonship of Jesus and in the inner
life of the Three Persons. It takes time and God’s grace to become able to hear
this in such a way that it is real for me and comes into play in my prayer and
my life. God can only love me: I am his heart’s delight. He wants me to hear
this in my heart, to hear it in an operative way. Personal prayer is a
privileged place in which to hear it and to develop it over a lifetime.
(Adapted from Finbarr Lynch: When You Pray. Dublin: Messenger Publications,
2012).